Glathalia glared at Omar as he waved his flaming arm around, zapping gnats and flies and making small, high pitched noises as he pretended to voice out their cries of pain and agony.

"Oh, no, please don't burn me alive, Omar, I've got twelve hundred little grubs at home that I'm trying to fed with my own vomit!" Omar whispered with a chuckle. "Oh, Omar, please no, please don't set me on fire! Don't burn me alive, Omar, it hurts so bad, it feels like my face is melting off because it is oh my gods it's terrible no please noooo! Omar, I am a fly preacher I spread word of the fly gods to hundreds of millions of little follower flies and we feed flies without homes at soup kitchens how could you burn me alive you're a terrible sadistic person! Omar, Omar, I beseech thee! Omar, I am a very influential gnat! I have a billion trillion gazillion followers on Gnatbook, it's this amazing sentient book that's been [enchanted] and all the cool gnats hang out on magic scrolls and look at Gnatbook and talk to eachother over the Intergnat and I'm one of the most influential gnats and everybody listens to me and if you spare my life I'll give you a billion gnatbucks which can support like five billion gnats' livelihoods for centuries to come unless the value of the gnatbuck goes down but I can help you invest in gnatstocks that'll grow in value to beat the inflation and that's how I grew my following and also I'm livestreaming this conversation right now and the gnats on Gnatbook just love it and they-AAAAGH AGH I'm DYINGG the HORRIBLE AWFUL PAINNNN OW OW OWWWWWW BE SURE TO SUBSCRIIIIIBE!"

"Omar!" Glathalia shouted with a [skill] that sent a chill of wind through the air and shut off his flaming arm for a second. "Stop playing with your [skill] already and talk to me, seriously."

"Pardon my Crenzhe, but why the fuck should I, Galthalia?" spat Omar, activating his flaming arm yet again. "These bugs are obnoxious, and they're defiling our inner sanctum. I hate bugs, and I love destroying them, which makes my [skill] so perfect for me."

"How very fun for you," said Glathalia with a sigh as she adjusted her bra strap and buried her face in her right hand, which was covered in living wood. "Look, Omar, I've got to level with you."

"Oh, you're ready to level up? Gods, Glathalia, I'd fucking love to, but I still don't have enough [XP] yet. For whatever reason, being mind-shittingly overpowered makes it difficult to gain enough [XP] to level up properly, because you just need so much fucking [XP] in order to level up. Like, in other words, I just can't fucking level up unless I'm slaying some god awful beasties or something because I'm just so OP."

"Oh," Glathala nodded slowly, a sinister grin cracking across the living wood on her face. "Well, then, you'll be happy to know you misinterpreted me. See, Omar, I don't need to level up right now - in fact, I leveled up this morning and am feeling quite spry."

"Congratulations," said Omar with frustration and embarassment in his tone.

Glathalia paced around the large, eye-shaped table in the center of the Order of Ahw Gizer's inner sanctum and scratched her long, deep blue fingernail across it coyly. "So, seeing as I meant to figuratively level with you, please allow me to, Omar. You see, you have put us of the Order into grave danger. I'm just glad that I was lucky enough to be here in our sanctum - otherwise, you might've gotten away with your little endeavor without much issue. Well, that, or you may have truly been eaten by that dreadful Consumer, or perhaps it would've posessed you and walked you around like a puppet much like it was that poor undead skeleton. I could hear in my mind's ear that soul crying out for release - he seemed a quite knowledgeable and affable fellow, his name was Frank."

"Yes, yes, I met Frank before he was posessed by a Consumer," said Omar with a sigh as he burned some more bugs alive and smirked.

"Well, I was thinking. Since you and I know what you did, and this silly little undead skeleton you brought along with you - what's his name, again?" Glathalia looked to the undead skeleton that had helped Omar escape the stomache of the mega dragon in one piece.

"Gottfried, ma'am," said the skeleton with a bony smiled.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Yes, great, Gottfried," said Glathalia with a sigh. "Well, since you and Gottfried brought that awful Consumer to our sanctum, doubtlessly teaching it the secret way to enter, we've got to figure out what to do. Obviously, we've got to take care of it. Gifflenberg is dealing with quite enough shit right now what with all those perforations popping up and spewing beasts all over the place from the land of the dead-"

"Yes, yes, I know about that," said Omar. "Some awfully big boners are thrusting their way into our world, that much is for sure."

"Too true," said Galthalia as she picked up a long churchwarden pipe and lit it with Omar's arm. She took long, soothing puffs of tobacco and sighed, exhaling through her pointed nose. "Now, someone will have to take care of all those boners... Someone will have to handle them, to expend all their energy and dispatch them, and of course then clean up the awful mess they're making of our city."

Omar raised a hand in excitement, only to immediately be met with a grim look from Glathalia.

"But, thankfully, another organization has already decided to take the boners into their own hands."

Omar raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Who?"

"F.I.S.T." Glathalia blew a few smoke rings that bumped into and dissolved one another elegantly.

"Fuck, I should've known it was them," said Omar as he sighed again, even more heavily than last time, and burned some more bugs. "Fuck's sake, Glathalia, why are there so many damned bugs in here? This is just fucking ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, I love burning them, but they should all be dead by now I'd think, what, hasn't it been twenty minutes?"

"It feels longer," muttered Glathalia under her breath as she looked at Omar with disgust and took a deep drag of tobacco. "Anyways, the only adequate thing I can think of that will give blunt head trauma to two avians at once - that is to say, the only thing that I think will adequately serve us of the Order and the wider Gifflenberg area, while also solving the terrible problem of you being so overpowered that you're absolutely thirsting for [XP] is to assign you a task."

"Yes, yes, I figured that much, Glathalia," said Omar with a grumble. It always made him uncomfortable when a superior toyed with him in this way. "So what is it?"

"It's simple. You're going to go out and catch that Consumer for us. Alive." She smiled through a sea of airy tobacco.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me, Glathalia. Like, you cannot be fucking serious right now." Omar killed some more bugs. "Fuck, something smells like death in here, and I don't mean the bugs I'm burning. Anyways, Glathalia, you've got to get your head checked. I might be overpowered, but going toe to toe with a fucking Consumer is another thing entirely. Hell, isn't that what F.I.S.T. should be doing? Why the fuck are they worrying about all the boners popping up in droves when there is a Consumer on the loose? Don't they contain those things all the time? Why shouldn't I just... Leave the problem for them to deal with?"

Glathalia rolled her eyes. Then, she walked up to Omar and squeezed his shoulder with a sly chuckle before puffing smoke all up in his face. It was a rude gesture, sure, but he seemed to find it more alluring than anything else. "Omar, Omar, Omar. You silly little tauman. Don't you get the picture? They haven't contained it, because they don't know about it. Do you realize the opportunity you have here? We of the Order have never been privy to observe a Consumer in action, and one has practically fallen into our lap! One that is dying to absorb you. I'm merely suggesting we use this to our advantage, instead of just turning the Consumer over to a rival group. There has to be a reason they capture Consumers, Omar - they wouldn't do it if there wasn't any benefit, they may put on a front to seem magnanimous, but F.I.S.T. are as self serving as any other secret organization. We finally have a chance to get a piece of that pie, don't you see? And you can be the tauman to do it, Omar. It'll make you an Awh Gizer legend. You'll definitely get your one hundred and eightieth degree from this."

Omar cringed a little for a few reasons. One, because he'd been trying - and failing - to obtain his one hundred and eightieth degree from the Order for years now, and two because he'd stepped on a stone that felt like there was flesh under it or something.

"Gods, Glathalia, there's a loose stone here," said Omar.

Glathalia immediately accused Omar of trying to change the subject. However, Omar instead leaned down and lifted the stone by his foot, and then he screamed.

"What, Omar, by the gods, what is your problem?" Glathalia frowned.

"There's a fucking dead body here, Glathalia! A fucking corpse! What the fuck is this shit?!" Omar stumbled to the floor in shock, and then scrambled to shuffle away from the corpse and retched a little. "Oh gods, it reeks!"

"You're not kidding," said Glathalia as she took a puff. "This is... By the gods, this is a catastrophe."

Just at that moment, the door to the inner sanctum slid open and a wild-eyed kid stood there, wearing a cloak that was far too big for himself.

"Hi everyone, I'm Jimothy War Magerson III and I'm here for revenge," said the kid with a high pitched voice and an awkward smile. "What are you doing with that undead skeleton?"

"Tally ho, my good lad," said Gottfried with a nod.